BLACK PEARL SINGS! | Merrimack Repertory Theatre offers the regional premiere of this Frank Higgins work, wherein "a search for lost African-American folk music leads Susannah, an ambitious 'song collector' for the Library of Congress, to Pearl, a woman with a soulful voice, a steely spirit, and an incredible history. Featuring many beloved American folk songs and spirituals, the legacy of the past clashes with their hopes for the future, as they journey to find their way out of the shadows and into the spotlight." Estimated running time is one hour and 50 minutes with one intermission. | Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 50 East Merrimack St, Lowell | 978.654.4MRT | February 11–March 7 | Curtain 2 pm [February 17] + 7:30 pm Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 4 pm [no February 13] + 8 pm Sat | 2 + 7 pm [no March 7] Sun | $26-$56

THE ISLAND OF SLAVES | Pierre Marivaux's play — or more accurately, his scenario written for an Italian commedia troupe in Paris — hails from 1725 and has to do with the brutal relations of masters and servants. A male and female pair of each are shipwrecked on an island operated as a democracy by runaway slaves, and they're forced to trade roles for purposes of retraining. The Neil Bartlett translation/adaptation is presented here by Orfeo Group, with Kathryn Walsh directing a cast that includes Richer Reddick, Daniel Berger-Jones, Amanda J. Collins, Jared Craig, and Hannah Husband. | Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 orwww.BostonTheatreScene.com| February 11–March 6 | Curtain 7:30 pm Wed-Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 4 + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | Free first weekend; $18 second weekend; $25 third weekend; $30 fourth weekend; $15 students, seniors

LEGACY OF LIGHT | The Lyric Stage serves up the New England premiere of this cerebral, Stoppard-esque comedy by Karen Zacarias. The first of its interweaving two stories takes place during the Age of Enlightenment, with physicist Emilie du Châtelet discovering she's pregnant. While the 42-year-old Emilie rushes to finish her studies, fearing she may die in childbirth, the second story unfolds, in which modern-day researcher Olivia finds she's unable to conceive and starts looking for a surrogate. Lois Roach directs. | Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon St, Boston | 617.585.5678 | February 12–March 13 | Curtain 2 pm [February 17, March 10] + 7:30 pm Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 3 + 8 pm Sat | 3 pm Sun | $25-$54

Snacks The most substantial item in the assortment of dances by the Trey McIntyre Project last weekend was an oddly proportioned 20-minute meditation on climate change and Glacier National Park. McIntyre, whose company appeared at the ICA as part of the CRASHarts series, has gotten a lot of press exposure as an up-and-coming choreographer with serious ideas.

Phoenix critic wins grant It was announced earlier this week that Phoenix contributing writer Greg Cook's art blog, the New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, has been awarded a $30,000 endowment from the Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program, which rewards "commitment to the craft of writing and the advancement of critical discourse on contemporary visual art."

Ghost stories For all of the excitement that surrounded Wilco on the Maine State Pier or Sufjan Stevens at Port City Music Hall or the various sold-out Ray LaMontagne shows of the past year, there is no question that last Sunday's Phish show at the Cumberland County Civic Center was the biggest thing to hit our fair city in a very long time.

Joyful noise From the clamorous arrival of some ghetto hot wheels to a scorching gospel finale, Best of Both Worlds warms up The Winter's Tale . The third entry in American Repertory Theater's Shakespeare Exploded! Festival, this sizzling and soulful gloss on the Bard's late romance mines Shakespeare's time- and realm-hopping fairy tale.

Wanting more After its triumphant traversal of the complete Béla Bartók string quartets at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Borromeo Quartet was back for a free 20th- and 21st-century program at Jordan Hall, leading off with an accomplished recent piece by the 24-year-old Egyptian composer Mohammed Fairuz, Lamentation and Satire.

Wild about Harry What I want to do — what most photographers want to do — is write Harry Callahan a love letter. At the very least, he deserves an elaborate thank-you note for innovating or validating 80 percent of the successful photographs we ever took.

Looking DuBack Looking backward, history seems a whole lot more orderly than it does while you're living it.

Séance Rachel Berwick's art is concerned with conjuring ghosts — in particular the spirits of creatures or peoples near extinction or already died out.

Book Review: The Tin Drum There are — and have always been — two Günter Grasses. There's the Grass who was born in Danzig and the Grass who was born in Gdansk.

LIGHT WAVES: BOSTON BALLET'S ''ALL KYLIÁN'' | March 13, 2013 A dead tree hanging upside down overhead, with a spotlight slowly circling it. A piano on stilts on one side of the stage, an ice sculpture's worth of bubble wrap on the other.

HANDEL AND HAYDN'S PURCELL | February 04, 2013 Set, rather confusingly, in Mexico and Peru, the 1695 semi-opera The Indian Queen is as contorted in its plot as any real opera.

REVIEW: MAHLER ON THE COUCH | November 27, 2012 Mahler on the Couch , from the father-and-son directing team of Percy and Felix Adlon, offers some creative speculation, with flashbacks detailing the crisis points of the marriage and snatches from the anguished first movement of Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony.